Researchers have long believed that no manuscripts of early Italian Gregorian chant survived, but Holy Cross professor Daniel DiCenso believes he has found the Monza manuscript, a source dating to the mid 9th century.

A US$3.17 million , four-year project, funded by the Polonsky Foundation, will make available for the first time materials from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford.

Archaeologists excavating the Convent of Saint Ursula in Florence believe they have found the remains of Lisa Gherardini, thought by art historians to be the model for Leonardo DaVinci's famed Mona Lisa.

Paolo and Gabriella Mazza of Florence, Italy combined a work project with a new home when they purchased La Camerata, as the 3,444-square-foot (320 square meters) theater, believed to have been designed by Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi. (slideshow)

400 years after its publication, Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince still inspires analysis and comment. One of the latest is a two-part story by Nick Spencer in the Guardian. The premise of the article: How do we utilise power to do good while utilising evil to keep power?

What is the Palio di Eskalya? It is inspired by the Italian Palio festivals which encourage civic pride, pageantry and multiple competitions where the winning Contrade takes the Palio banner and bragging rights for the next year!

Get grubby with the peasants for a day of fun in the sun at Barbarian Brawl Featuring: Tournaments • spear throwing a high-falutin' Regional A&S competition with additional sponsored awards • and just downright dirty fun!

The University of California, Riverside, has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to identify figures in paintings and sculpture.

In a recent ArtBlog posted by The Guardian, Jonathan Jones ponders Botticelli's enduring masterpiece, The Birth of Venus, painted in 1484, and tries to discover if it is the ancient religion that makes it so compelling.

Italian archaeologists have recently excavated a 3rd century Roman shipwreck off the coast of Marausa Lido, a beach resort near Trapani. On board they found eveidence of smuggling in the form of unusual tubular tiles, taken from North Africa to Rome. (photo)

Over the past 18 months, the art world has held its collective breath to see the results of the Louvre's restoration of Leonardo da Vinci's last work The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, but the wait is now over. (photo)

Cerca trova - "seek and you shall find" is the message hidden in a Florence mural by Giorgio Vasari, long thought to have replaced Leonardo da Vinci's greatest work, leading scientists to use high tech methods to investigate behind the painting. (photos and video)

Chemical analysis of the Medici Venus, a 1st century Roman sculpture housed since 1677 at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, has determined that the sensuous lady once had painted lips, gilded hair and jeweled earrings.

A video from the series Rome Reports, posted on YouTube, describes objects contained in the Vatican's archive of documents and artifacts kept and sent by missionaries from 1622 until modern times. (video)

Rome’s Capitoline Museums are offering the chance for scholars to view formerly secret and historic Vatican documents never before seen outside of the Holy See. The exhibition runs February - September 2012.